Shak

We've been excellent like, controlled the game. Just lack quality, can't really start Murphy and Joelinton as two of your most advanced players and expect much in the way of quality in the final third.

Definitely thought that I'd have preferred to see Schar on it before it was taken. Was playing so well too.

God what a shite moment. Awful penalty like.

Roof closed would definitely help the noise but there's nowt quite like a good game of football in the rain.

Really looks like a barn

I'd agree that if it's at all possible we should have a stadium that has a more classic look that will age well, feels particularly important if we stay in the city centre. Full expect some sort of modern looking mehfactory but would love to be surprised.

Looks like what you'd come up with if asked to draw Megatron's anus.

Just saw the red incident, weird one. Quite a cynical foul as it appears like he slips and then just decides to take Madison down. Feel like he got that part all wrong and took him much higher up the leg than he thought he would. No massive sympathy for him as it seemed quite nasty but I don't think it should be a red.

Joelinton is an incredibly easy player to cheer for and I do think he's turned into a good Premier League midfielder who'll be a solid asset for years to come. That said, there's a decent argument to be made that moving him on last summer and replacing him with a player who's better in possession might have been the smart move when you divorce emotion from it. Tonali seems to me like he'll eventually be able to bring pretty much all of what Joelinton does to the table in terms of his presence in midfield, while having a much better eye for a pass and generally being tidier in possession. Either a player to play as the #6 and release Bruno further upfield or a more creative #8 seems like a better complement to Bruno and Tonali in my view, with those two being who I suspect we're planning to build the midfield around. This is especially true if we're trying to transition to being a bit more possession based, which the early part of the season seems to point to being the case. As much as Joelinton does bring to the team, it's hard having one of your more attack minded midfielders being someone who offers very little quality in the final third.

He's class like. Surprised by how much of a beast he is. Impressive mix of speed and power. Feel like once it all clicks he's basically gonna offer us all the good stuff that Joelinton does while also being much better in possession and a threat to create in the final third.

I think we've maybe fallen into thinking that against supposedly lesser teams we can control the game a bit more and maybe don't need the same work rate. But that's not where the strength of the players we have is. I dare say that in terms of our ability to play patient build up, possession based football we're probably in the bottom half of the table with the personnel we have. Where we have the advantage though is our physicality and how good our players are at doing things at high tempo. Joelinton and Tonali's physicality, Gordon and Willock running at defenders, Barnes' ability to quickly create half a yard of space and get a shot away. Even our limited players like Murphy and Longstaff are at their best as they're playing more of a reactive game rather than needing to be tidy in possession. We've read before that Eddie wants us to transition to a more possession based style but I just don't think we have the players for it and he needs to go back to what we're best at. If he wants to transition to being more possession based, we need to bring in players that allow us to do that next summer. Either that or build serious squad depth that allows us to rotate and play at high intensity every game.

Aye, we were much more high energy and had a go at City throughout. Had the better of it first half until they scored in terms of taking the game to the opposition and we pressed them in their own half really well.

Delighted to see him get the response from the team today, thought we were quality for the whole game really. I hope today will be the day we flip the switch. Our entire ethos as a team needs to be to do everything at break neck speed. When we sit off teams, it's easy to pick spaces between our midfield and defence. When we try to play patient football in the final third, we allow teams to settle into their shape and then don't have the players who can break that down with intricate play in the final third. Wheels up, trousers down. Press teams like we're Lou Thesz from first whistle to last.

Proper fucking game of football that.

That's fair enough, I guess what it comes down to is that I'd like to see the bar for what constitutes foul worthy contact be where it was yesterday, rather than where it generally is.

Just to clarify Your contention here is that if a player in possession of the ball is made contact with by an opponent, they should receive a free kick in the event that they then fall down?

I mean it depends on the scenario. Sometimes a slight bit of contact is a clear foul, yes. I'm more talking about things like when Bruno buys free kicks by just going down under slight contact from a push in the back when shielding the ball.

I'm not sure how I feel, honestly. Mitchell has made about as bad a first impression as possible. Achieved nothing in his first transfer window and hasn't seemingly done a good job at all at developing a good relationship with his manager. That said, I do think that the best way for us to grow and consistently challenge at the top is to have someone whose strengths are what Mitchell is expected bring to the table in terms of recruitment. I'm a little disappointed that Howe seems to be unwilling to adapt to the new situation, too. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes but I've been told by a few people that he's a control freak and wants to essentially be in charge of everything from a footballing perspective. He seems like a bright and driven guy, he should surely be smart enough to see that if he wants to manage at a really top club he's gonna have to make some compromises? It's unfortunate, because on paper I think they should make a cracking pair. Mitchell recruiting behind the scenes, Eddie taking the players he has and getting the best out of them on the pitch. There's still hope, but we know Eddie is very stubborn and there's been nothing at all I've seen from Mitchell that gives me any confidence at all that he's gonna bring it all together and build trust between them. There's only one way it ends, though. There's just no way PIF choose Howe over Mitchell if they can't co-exist.

That's fair. I suppose my counter would be that they should be trying to play football, not trying to buy free kicks, but that's admittedly an unrealistic hope.

Thought the ref was really good btw, didn't fall for either team's attempts to buy cheap free kicks by looking for contact and then falling over. Wish more refs would call it like that. Allows games to flow a lot more. It's a contact sport, being strong in the challenge should be part of the game, if you can't maintain your control under the slightest contact then you deserve to lose the ball to be honest. It's become too accepted a part of the game to get your body between the ball and your opponent and just fall over if there's any contact IMO.

Not looking good this. We've looked like absolute shite in every game this season (except the Spurs game maybe) until we've abandoned the game plan that we worked on all week.

Yes.

If the front six is Willock, Bruno, Joelinton, Barnes, Gordon and Isak then that's probably on paper the best front six we've put on the field in the best part of 20 years

If the midfield three is Willock, Bruno and Joelinton I really hope it's Joelinton on the right and Willock the left. Get so much more of Willock on that side. No Tonali is annoying but there's obviously something there that they're not comfortable with yet so I'll get over it. What's more encouraging is that we're gonna try a midfield three without Tonali but Longstaff not automatically getting that spot. It'll be tremendous for us moving forward if we're able to rotate among Joelinton, Willock, Tonali and Bruno as the starting three, with Longstaff essentially demoted to fifth choice.

Find that quote extremely funny for some reason